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Friday, July 27, 2012

Starting Over, Chapter 13

Chapter 13

Teresa stood on the bunkhouse porch
leaning against one of the newly repaired support posts. One hand cradled a cup of coffee while the
other caressed the butt of the pistol strapped to her hip. The first rays of the morning sun washed over
the planes of her face, throwing them into sharp relief. But for all her alert poise, she saw none of
the beauty of the prairie dawn unfolding before her. Her sights were fully focused, in furious
anger, on the couple still exiled to the sweat lodge hidden behind the
bunkhouse.

The sound of door hinges squeaking as
someone exited the house across the yard brought her attention back to her
present location. Seeing Polly and
Rachel walking toward the bunkhouse, each loaded down with a platter of food,
she straightened, narrowing her eyes.
Sure enough, Teaspoon came stepping out the door after the two women a
moment later. He had two napkin covered
plates balanced carefully in his hands.

Without taking her eyes off the old
stationmaster, Teresa set her tin cup down on the bench behind her, along the
bunkhouse wall, and yelled out, “Buck, come take the watch.”

She didn’t wait for a response, but took
off, practically running, across the yard.
Nearly tripping over her own feet to switch direction and match paces
with the silver haired Marshal, she reached out and plucked the plates out of
his hands.

“Here, I’ll take those,” she said
without preamble.

“Hey,” Teaspoon protested to her back as
she was already speeding toward the sweat lodge with long, determined
strides. “Wait a minute,” he called
after her. “What do you think yer
doin’?”

“I’ve got a think or two to say to my
sister,” Teresa growled. “It’s time she
started actin’ her age and takin’ care of her responsibilities!”

Teaspoon finally caught up with the
younger woman and grabbed frantically at her arm to stop her, almost spilling
Lou’s and Kid’s breakfasts in the dirt in the process.

“Now just hold on a sec’ there, young
lady,” he started to intervene, but Teresa glared him into silence and jerked
her arm free of his grasp.

“No,” she said in a hard, determined
voice. She shook her head emphatically
when Teaspoon opened his mouth to say something. “I’ve waited long enough, and those children
have paid the price.”

“Them two’s got things ta work out
‘tween ‘em ‘fore they can get back ta bein’ the parents they should be,”
Teaspoon sputtered. “They ain’t gonna
get that done if ya start interruptin’ ‘em.
That’s why they’re out there.”

“I let you have your way yesterday,”
Teresa spat. “I even let them alone all
night. Now,” she ground out, her eyes
narrowing, “it’s my turn.”

Having taken her stand, Teresa whirled
about and resumed her inexorable march toward the sweat lodge. Teaspoon watched her a moment, shaking his
head in wonder.

“She’s a McCloud alright,” he finally
muttered to no one as he watched her jerk the lodge’s door open without any
warning. “Ain’t no doubt ‘bout that.”

Still muttering to himself about the
capriciousness of women in general and the McCloud women in particular, he
turned and headed at a more sedate pace toward the bunkhouse, a hot breakfast
and his own wife, who had at least mellowed some with age.

“I’ll never figger women out.”

**********

“So, just when did you fall in love with
her? When did ya fall in love with Mrs.
Lydia Cathers?”

Lu looked at his erstwhile wife, head
tilted and brow furled in confusion.
“What on earth are you talkin’ ‘bout?”

“Well, ya was gonna marry her,” Lou said
slowly, speaking patiently as if to a two year old. “You must’ve fallen in love with her at some
point.” She looked down at her hands,
beginning to fiddle with the buttons on her longjohns. “When?” she whispered just barely loud enough
to be heard.

She was so lost in the misery of her own
thoughts she didn’t hear or see Lu crawling across the sweat lodge to her side,
so she stiffened in surprise at the feel of his hand under her chin. Gently, he pushed upward, forcing her to meet
his eyes. She nearly gasped at the sight,
the corners crinkled in a smile she could tell was plastered across his lips,
though she couldn’t see them, a bright inner light enhancing their blue depths.

“Let me be very clear about this Louise
McCloud,” he said softly, his face just inches away from hers. “I don’t love Lydia Cathers. I never did.
We’re friends, sure. Sorta like
you and Jimmy used ta be, from what he told me.
We was gonna get married fer Carl’s sake and so’s she could join a wagon
train west. But it was never about
love.”

He reached out with his free hand and
slowly traced one finger down the side of her cheek. “So far’s I can remember I ain’t never been
really, truly in love with anyone.”

Lou opened her mouth to say something,
but Lu placed a finger over her lips to silence the words before they were
spoken.

“But,” he continued, “I think I just may
be fallin’ in love with you. Think my
wife would mind?”

Unable to speak, tears of happiness and
relief gathering in the corners of her eyes, Lou shook her head ‘no’.

“Good,” he whispered, just as his lips
replaced his finger, settling gently over hers.
She gasped in surprise and he swallowed the escaping breath, along with
all the rest of the air in her lungs.

“Well, it’s nice to see you two have
worked things out.”

The pair jumped apart almost guiltily,
turning as one to face the source of the scornfully sarcastic voice that had
just interrupted them.

“Now hold on there, young lady,” Lu
spoke sternly, trying to intervene, but Lou placed a hand on his arm to pull
him back and shook her head, even as Teresa turned on him.

“Don’t you start in on me. You ain’t my Pa. You gave up that right when ya left us with
Lou to run off and play soldier,” Teresa sneered. “Just ‘cause ya cain’t remember ain’t no
excuse, neither.”

“Just what is your problem, Teresa
McCloud?” Lou demanded huffily, having had enough of her sister’s
diatribe. “You know better than to speak
to people like that. I may not be yer
Ma, but I’ve tanned yer hide often enough ta be. And ya ain’t too old, nor too big,” Lou
added, staring up at her ‘little’ sister, “fer me ta do it again.”

“If there’s anyone in need of a good
hidin’, it’s you two!”

“What the hell are you talkin’ ‘bout?”
Lu asked irritably.

“Your children? Or have ya forgotten yer parents? With responsibilities?”

Lou gasped, a hand coming up to cover
her mouth as she thought about how they’d ended up in the sweat lodge together. But Teresa didn’t notice, continuing to tear
into her sister.

“Just because yer world got turned
upside down is no reason ta leave her thinkin’ she ain’t loved or wanted! Yer a mother, Louise McCloud. Ya oughta know what that means by now. You don’t have the luxury of actin’ like a
silly girl in love fer the first time no more!”

“Mary Kate!” Lou exhaled, trembling at
the thought of what her daughter had gone through.

“Ah, so you do remember you’ve got a
daughter,” Teresa snorted.

“What’s wrong with Mary Kate?” Lu
demanded, worried now, glancing back and forth between the two women.

Lou turned to him, her face blanched
whiter than her longjohns.

“I hadn’t told her… yet,” she whispered.

“Hadn’t told her… about me?” Lu guessed,
his own face beginning to lose its color as he remembered their heated
argument. Lou simply nodded, tears
starting to leak out of the corners of her eyes. Lu reached out and pulled her into his arms,
hugging her tightly to him. Looking over
Lou’s head at Teresa he asked quietly, “How is she?”

“Fine, now,” Teresa answered
shortly. “After I did what y’all should
have!”

“I’ve got to find her, talk to her…
apologize,” Lou suddenly spoke up, pulling out of Kid’s embrace. Without a second glance at either her husband
or her sister, she ducked out of the sweat lodge entrance and began running
toward the bunkhouse, still wearing only her longjohns.

Lu started to follow her, but stopped in
the doorway, turning back to look at his sister-in-law when she called out his
name.

“That may be, but he thinks Mary Kate’s
gainin’ a Pa means him losin’ one. Ya
might want ta talk to him again.”

Lu nodded.

“Thank you,” he said simply, before
taking off after Lou.

**********

Lu saw a flash of white from Lou’s
longjohns as she disappeared through the barn door and quickly hurried to catch
up with her. Pushing through the door a
moment later, he heard the soft murmur of her voice coming from the hayloft.

He reached the ladder and climbed
hurriedly up the rungs, stopping for a moment as his head and shoulders cleared
the hayloft floor. From there, he saw
Lou sitting in a pile of loose hay, leaning up against a haybale, with Mary
Kate snuggled in her lap. He smiled in
appreciation of the site. His two
girls. He marveled at the idea and just
how happy it made him.

“So, my Pa really ain’t dead?” Mary Kate
asked plaintively.

Lou shook her head. She gently brushed hair out of the little
girl’s eyes with one hand, then hugged her close with her other arm. “No, honey.
He ain’t dead. And that’s reason
ta be happy. But we’re all gonna have ta
work at gettin’ used ta each other. He’s
been gone a long time and he ain’t the man he was when he left.”

“Maybe he fergot us ‘cause he didn’t
want a little girl,” Mary Kate said mournfully, playing absently with a piece
of straw, so she wouldn’t have to see her Ma’s reaction to the statement.

“Now that ain’t true at all,” Lu said,
finishing his climb into the hayloft. “There’s
nothin’ more I want than a little girl of my very own.”

Coming over to Lou’s side, he sat down
next to her and pulled both women into his arms.

“And now that I know all about you, I
ain’t never lettin’ you go.”

“What about Carl?” she asked timidly,
raising her eyes to brave looking at her father.

“What about him?”

“Is he still yer son?”

“Yes,” Lu said, smiling at the little
girl he still couldn’t quite believe was his.
“And he always will be. So, in a
way, I guess that makes him yer brother.”

Confused, Mary Kate looked from one
parent to the other. Lou laughed and
said, “You remember all the stories I’ve told you about my Express family, yer
Grandma Emma, Grandpas Sam and Teaspoon and all yer uncles?”

The little girl nodded slowly.

“Well, you know we made a rather unusual
family. Right?” Lou waited for Mary Kate to respond with
another nod, before continuing. “Well,
this is just more of that. You and Carl
may not share any blood, but you share a Pa and that makes ya brother and
sister. Do you think you can handle
being a big sister?”

“That’s a mighty big responsibility fer
such a young lady,” Lu added, smiling down at the girl who was now sitting half
on Lou and half on him, leaning back against his chest.

She jumped up off his lap, excited. “Sure!
I’m a big girl! I can handle
anything. And I’ve always wanted a
brother.”

She turned to head toward the ladder,
obviously intent on something, but Lou called her back.

“Mary Kate, there’s one more thing I
need to say to you.”

“Yes, Ma?”

“I’m sorry.” Mary Kate looked at her mother in confusion. Lou clarified. “I…” she paused and looked over at Lu, “we should have talked to you about this
sooner. I guess I was just afraid.”

Lu cleared his throat, then added, “Sometimes
we adults get caught up in our lives and forget to explain things like we
should. We’ll try not to let it happen
again.”

“It’s alright, Ma,” Mary Kate paused as
she looked at Kid, then added tentatively, “Pa.
It’s like ya always told me, an error don’t become a mistake ‘less ya
refuse ta admit it.” Without another
word, she climbed onto the ladder and disappeared.

“You’ve raised one heck of a young lady
there, Louise McCloud,” Lu said softly.

Lou smiled sadly, “It was easy. She’s so much like you, all I had to do was
get out of her way most of the time.”

Lu started to tighten his arms around
her, trying to bring her in closer for a kiss, but suddenly she was scrambling
up off the hayloft floor. Standing over
him, she held out her hand toward Kid.

“Come on,” she said. “We’d better go get dressed and head in fer
breakfast. No tellin’ what she’ll say ta
the others if we ain’t there. I swear,
she’s got a good portion of her uncles Jimmy and Cody in her, too!”

Reaching up to take her hand and stand
up, Lu laughed. “I don’t know, I’d say
she’s more like her mother, temper and all.”
Then he scooted over to the ladder and out of the hayloft as fast as he
could to avoid the woman who was chasing him, laughter in her eyes and a smile
on her face, even as she tried her best to beat him black and blue.

**********

“So there I am, standing before Mr.
Jarvis mouth wide open to ask for a job, and Jimmy walks up and say, ‘I’ve
found yer cook.’” Lydia laughed, smiling, as she regaled the rest of the
Express family with the story of her newfound employment. “I just stared at him. I didn’t know what to say or do. Mr. Jarvis looks at him and says, ‘Oh,
really? Did you finally get Mrs. Dunne
to agree to leave the schoolhouse for the kitchen?’”

“Not on your life,” Rachel muttered. “I’ve done my time as a cook. I enjoy it as a pastime, but I don’t ever
want to have to make a living at it, again.”

“Why?” Buck asked. “You could make your fortune with your
flapjacks alone.” And he grinned widely
at her while shoving a gigantic bite of said flapjacks into his mouth. Rachel just shook her head at his deliberate
lack of manners.

Lydia laughed at the byplay. “Jimmy just smiles and holds out the pie
plate he’d dragged along and said, ‘Nope. Better.’”

“Tell them what he said after he tasted
yer pie, Ma,” Carl piped up from his seat at the end of the bench.

“He picked up the fork, took a bite and
I swear he moaned in pleasure right there in the middle of his restaurant. Then he proceeded to eat the entire rest of
that piece of pie, standing up!”

“I was ready ta pistol whip him, too,”
Jimmy muttered from where he sat next to Lydia.
“That was my pie. He didn’t even ask!”

Lydia ‘shushed’ him and moved on with
her story. “As he’s licking the last
bits of pie off the fork he looks at Jimmy and says, ‘Where is she?’ Jimmy just pointed at me. Mr. Jarvis raised a brow as he looked me up
and down and said, ‘Looks a mite puny for a cook. Sure she can handle the job?’”

Teaspoon cleared his throat at
that. “Them’s fightin’ words in this
family.”

“Anyway, he offered me twice whatever I
was making now to start tomorrow. Tomorrow! Can you believe it? He’s going to pay me to cook!” She beamed her pleasure at everyone seated at
the table.

“Congratulations,” Lou offered as she
walked in the door. Knowing Kid had
never really loved the other woman made it so much easier to be nice to her,
she found.

The Author

Who am I? A Hispanic broadcast journalist, current host of Kansas Week on KPTS, and certified high school teacher, a writer and lifelong lover of all things historical, particularly the Old West. I'm married to a wonderful man from Germany and we have a 17 yr old son. We have two rescued cats and a rescued pooch, who thinks she's a 70 lb lapdog. I'm prone to talk about anything and everything that catches my interest.